The Hanging Valley (An Inspector Banks Mystery)


Book Description

When a faceless body is found in a tranquil valley just south of the village of Swainshead, Chief Inspector Alan Banks soon finds that no one in the village is willing to talk about it, except to say, “Not again.” An unsolved murder from five years before and the unsolved disappearance of a prominent local man’s girlfriend appear to be connected. As Banks delves deeper into the mystery, someone begins to intentionally slow down the investigation. When events take a turn, Inspector Banks must track his killer across the Atlantic and find a way to make a break in the case before time runs out. Fourth in the critically acclaimed Inspector Banks Mystery Series.




A Necessary End


Book Description

"Thoughtful . . . vivid . . . challenging . . . Like the region that breeds them, the people in Robinson's mystery flaunt their colors but keep their secrets." —The New York Times Book Review The third installment in the internationally bestselling Inspector Banks series Violence erupts at an anti-nuclear demonstration in the usually peaceful town of Eastvale, leaving one young policeman stabbed to death with over a hundred suspects. Detective Chief Inspector Banks is called upon to investigate the murder, but things get difficult when an old rival, the volatile Superintendent Richard "Dirty Dick" Burgess, is sent from London to lead the investigation. As Burgess narrows his suspicions on the inhabitants of "Maggie's Farm," an isolated house high on the daleside, Banks sifts through a host of unusual suspects and disturbing discoveries about the police themselves. Then Banks is warned off the case, and he realizes that the only way he can salvage his career is by beating Burgess to the killer. As the two head for a final confrontation, Banks pieces together the full story behind his most tragic case so far.




Gallows View


Book Description

The first “devilishly good” (The New York Times Book Review) book in the thrilling bestselling crime series featuring British inspector Alan Banks as he seeks to catch a Jack the Ripper-like killer who is prowling the countryside. Chief Inspector Alan Banks moved away from London to the quaint village of Eastvale to find some peace, but trouble can be found in a village as well as in the city. Soon Banks must contend with a Peeping Tom, a group of thieving young thugs, and the brutal murder of an elderly woman in her home. A growing friendship with psychologist Jenny Fuller and tension with wife Sandra complicate matters, particularly when Jenny and Banks’s family are threatened. Ultimately, as the story builds to a surprising and terrifying climax, Banks must make some hard decisions.




Wednesday's Child


Book Description

An Inspector Banks mystery.




Past Reason Hated


Book Description

‘The Alan Banks mystery-suspense novels are the best series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong’ Stephen King From the master of police procedural and bestselling author of Standing in the Shadows comes Past Reason Hated, book five in Peter Robinson’s the Inspector Banks series. A BRUTAL KILLING. NUMEROUS SUSPECTS. BANKS MUST UNCOVER THE TRUTH. It should have been a cosy scene – log fire, sheepskin rug, Vivaldi on the stereo, Christmas lights and tree. But appearances can be deceptive. For Caroline Hartley, lying quietly on the couch, has been brutally murdered. Inspector Alan Banks is called to the grim scene. And he soon has more suspects than he ever imagined. As he delves into her past, he realizes that for Caroline, secrecy was a way of life, and her death is no different. His ensuing investigation is full of hidden passions and desperate violence . . . Past Reason Hated is followed by Wednesday’s Child in the Inspector Banks series.




In A Dry Season: DCI Banks 10


Book Description

During a blistering summer, drought has depleted Thornfield Reservoir, uncovering the remains of a small village called Hobb's End - hidden from view for over 40 years. For a curious young boy this resurfaced hamlet has become a magical playground ... until he unearths a human skeleton. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is given the impossible task of identifying the victim - a woman who lived in a place that no longer exists, whose former residents are scattered to the winds. Anyone else might throw in the towel but Banks sets out to uncover the murky past buried beneath a flood of time...




When We Were Orphans


Book Description

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes this stunning work of soaring imagination. Born in early twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age of nine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, more than twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in London society; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him fame has done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents' alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthine city of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyond recognition—and that his own recollections are proving as difficult to trust as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful and psychologically acute, When We Were Orphans offers a profound meditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibility of avenging one’s past.




Silent Scream


Book Description




Barney's Version


Book Description

Charged with comic energy and a steely disregard for any pieties whatsoever, Barney's Version is a major Richler novel, the most personal and feeling book of a long and distinguished career. Told in the first person, it gives us the life (and what a life!) of Barney Panofsky--whose trashy TV company, Totally Useless Productions, has made him a small fortune; whose three wives include a martyred feminist icon, a quintessential JCP (Jewish-Canadian Princess), and the incomparable Miriam, the perfect wife, lover, and mother--alas, now married to another man; who recalls with nostalgia and pain his young manhood in the Paris of the early fifties, and his lifelong passion for wine, women, and the Montreal Canadiens; who either did or didn't murder his best friend, Boogie, after discovering him in bed with The Second Mrs. Panofsky; whose satirical eye for the idiocies of today's Quebec separatists (as well as for every other kind of political correctness) manages to offend his entire acquaintanceship (and will soon be offending readers everywhere); and whose memory--though not his bile--is, in his sixty-seventh year, definitely slipping . . .




Many Rivers to Cross


Book Description

Peter Robinson, the acclaimed author of the bestselling series Stephen King calls “the best now on the market,” returns with a gripping, emotionally charged mystery in which the revered detective Alan Banks must find the truth about a murder with possible racial overtones—and save a friend from ruin. In Eastvale, a young Middle Eastern boy is found dead, his body stuffed into a wheelie bin on the East Side Estate. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team know they must tread carefully to solve this sensitive case, but tensions rise when they learn that the victim was stabbed somewhere else and dumped. Who is the boy, and where did he come from? Then, in a decayed area of Eastvale scheduled for redevelopment, a heroin addict is found dead. Was this just another tragic overdose, or something darker? To prevent tensions from reaching a boiling point, Banks must find answers quickly. Yet just when he needs to be at his sharpest, the seasoned detective finds himself distracted by a close friend’s increasingly precarious situation. Banks needs a break—and gets one when he finds a connection to a real estate developer who could be the key to finding the truth. With so many loose ends dangling, there is one thing Banks is sure of—solving the case will come at a terrible cost.